By the middle of the fourth century, monasticism had already established itself quite powerfully as a new phenomenon within the Church. At this time, the formation of the main forms of monastic life - anachoretic and cinovial. The first monastic charters were drawn up, for example, "The Charter of St. John the Baptist". Pachomia", the rules of St. Basil the Great, according to which the whole life of the monastic community was built. This century is a time of rapid growth in the number of monasteries and monks. Monasteries were established in the late Roman Empire, and monks were members of the Church. How did the secular and ecclesiastical authorities react to the emergence of monasticism? After all, the monastic statutes regulated the life of the monastery as if from the inside, the anchorites did not obey any statutes at all. We should ask ourselves what was the status of monks and monasteries in the fourth century, when the legislation, both ecclesiastical and secular, concerning monks was only developing: did the state distinguish monks as a separate group within the Church, and if so, did they have any privileges on an equal basis with clerics? What was the relationship between ecclesiastical and secular legislation governing the life of monasteries and monks? I must say that this topic has not been overlooked by researchers(1), but most of them consider church and secular legislation in isolation from each other. Researchers have come to the conclusion that the status of monks and their associations, as opposed to the status of the Church, is very unclear, but there have been almost no attempts to trace whether legislation changed during the second half of the fourth century. Many scholars have traced the history of monastic terminology(2), but they have not tried to identify the relationship between its development and the definition of the status of monastic communities and monks. In this article, only monuments of canonical, i.e. ecclesiastical, law and Ro ... Read more